1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for assisting in telephone communications, particularly by users of mobile telephones, who also use other forms of communications and a variety of devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the use of mobile telephones by the general consumer has increased. In addition, computer telephony has become accepted by some users and there have been movements toward unified messaging where voice mail, electronic mail and facsimile messages are stored on a single information services system and can be delivered to many different devices, as either or both visible and audible information. However, existing systems are not always easy to use and often require that many parts of the communication network use proprietary technology.
Attempts to improve this situation include the development of what are termed personal assistants, such as those available from Wildfire, General Magic (Portico) and voice activated dialing systems available from Brite and Intellivoice. However, these solutions have drawbacks of their own, including the time-consuming process of getting contact information into the system.
There are several well-known voice recognition products in the market place separated into small vocabulary category such as VCS and large vocabulary category such as Nuance, Altech, LandH, Philips and more. This technology are the fundamental key technology for all Personal Assistant systems as well as any other network based voice control applications such as voice activated dialing (VAD), voice control voice mail (VCVM). All Personal Assistant systems as well as all VAD systems offer the xe2x80x9cplacing a callxe2x80x9d function. An example of a xe2x80x98calling sessionxe2x80x99 (disregarding error correction techniques and conversational dialogue afterwards) of first generation Personal Assistant systems (like Wildfire(trademark)) and voice activated dialing (VAD) systems would be:
Sub: xe2x80x98Callxe2x80x99
Sys: xe2x80x98Who Should I callxe2x80x99
Sub: xe2x80x98John Dowxe2x80x99
Sys: xe2x80x98At which location?xe2x80x99
Sub: xe2x80x98Homexe2x80x99
Sys: xe2x80x98OKxe2x80x99
Text-to-speech is a well-known technology that enables computers to convert and play written text to synthesized voice. These products are available today by fairly large number of providers including lucent technologies, LandH, IBM and more. One of the most usable applications of this technology is an xe2x80x98email readerxe2x80x99 the ability to read an email message through a telephone or at least the email header (such as sender, delivery time and subject line).
Short Message Service (SMS) is a well-known short text messages communication method in digital mobile networks. The functionality is available in GSM, PCS, CDMA and TDMA network and uses the data channel to send messages back and forth between a subscriber handset and other subscribers, email and voicemail systems and other systems that are connected together. Basic SMS capabilities include: sending a short text message to the subscriber handset, sending a short message from one subscriber to handset to another valid destination, converting an email message format to SM format and sending it to a subscriber handset, accepting voice mail MWI codes to be displayed on the subscriber""s handset, and converting SM originated by the subscriber handset into emails and send them to an email address.
It is a common feature to send email messages to subscriber handsets via Short Message, these messages can be sent directly to the SM address (which is also a valid email address), or they can be sent via a mailbox repository for example the TRILOGUE INfinity Unified Mailbox. Once the message is deposited in the mailbox, an automatic setup can determine to copy the entire message or the message header or a summary of the mailbox content to the subscriber handset via a short message. Another type of text messages that can be schedule to be copied (or header or summary) to the subscriber SM display are the fax messages using a fax-to-text converter (OCR) technology. In addition, the TRILOGUE INfinity system as well as other voicemail and unified messaging systems provide the ability to listen to email messages or to email headers via the telephone, based on text-to-speech (TTS) technology.
It is an object of the present invention to provide message information embedded in a standard communication protocol.
It is another object of the present invention to display information about messages for a subscriber of a message service by using the message information embedded in a standard communication protocol.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a personal assistant service that can be easily provisioned with information about contacts.
It is a further object of the present invention to associate a call return number with a message for a subscriber.
It is yet another object of the present invention to record telephone conversations in a voicemail system.
To achieve these objects, the present invention provides a messaging system, including an information services system to store messages for subscribers and to embed encoded information in calling line identification signals; and at least one communication device, connectable to the information services system to receive the calling line identification signals, having a visual display to display the encoded information.
Preferably, the information services platform provides information services to at least one subscriber, including a personal assistant service for making outgoing calls in response to instructions from the subscriber; and the communication device accesses the information services for the subscriber, including storing on the information services platform contact information associated with a message from a sender for future communication with the sender of the message, when the subscriber inputs a request to add the contact information when the message is being reproduced for the subscriber.
Preferably, the information services system also stores a return call number and subsequently receives a message for a subscriber associated with the return call number; and the communication device receives information related to the message from the information services system, displays the information related to the messages and is capable of making a call to the return call number.
Preferably, the information services platform stores a message for a subscriber and generates audio signals from the message; and the communication device receives and outputs the audio signals and displays text associated with the message in response to a request by the subscriber generated during output of the audio signals.
Preferably, the communication device produces an instruction to reach a contact in response to a request from a subscriber; and the information services platform stores items of contact information for the contact under control of the subscriber and attempts to reach the contact using the items of contact information in a specified sequence upon receipt of the instruction from the communication device.
Preferably, the information services platform includes at least one telephone network interface unit, connected to at least one telephone network, to receive telephone calls from callers and to send and receive signals to and from subscribers; at least one message storage unit, coupled to the at least one telephone network interface unit, to store messages received when the subscriber is not connected and to record conversations when the subscriber is connected; and a control unit to control recording of the conversations in response to a log signal from the subscribers.
Preferably, the communication device includes a telephone network interface unit, connectable to the at least one telephone network; a voice frequency signal input/output unit coupled to the telephone network interface unit; a keypad, coupled to the telephone network interface unit, including keys to generate control signals for the information services system to log into the information services system, to listen to messages stored on the information services system, to select another message stored on the information services system, to delete a selected message stored on the information services system, to record voice signals, and to update contact information based on data associated with an informative message.
Preferably, according to the present invention a method of establishing a telephone connection is performed by displaying an electronic message to a user; and establishing the telephone connection to a telephone number associated with the electronic message in response to a request from the user.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the following description and, in part, will be obvious therefrom or may be learned by practice of the invention.